Amnesty: Ireland should end abortion ban, puts women at risk

Amnesty: Ireland should end abortion ban, puts women at risk

SHAWN POGATCHNIK

Jun. 09, 2015

DUBLIN (AP) — Amnesty International urged Ireland to ease its abortion ban as it unveiled a report Tuesday that said Europe's most restrictive laws on terminations endanger the lives of women.

The human rights watchdog's 113-page report included case studies of women who risked blood poisoning from dead fetuses that doctors refused to remove quickly; who were refused abortions after doctors determined the unborn child could not survive outside the womb; and who avoided post-abortion medical care in Ireland for fear of being identified as a criminal.

The report said Ireland should repeal its constitutional amendment giving the unborn fetus an equal right to life as the pregnant woman, arguing this 1983 clause conflicted with international human rights conventions that "human rights apply after birth."

"This needs to happen urgently as Ireland's current laws are putting the lives of women and girls at risk every day," said Colm O'Gorman, Amnesty's director in Ireland.

The Irish government, which in 2013 passed a law legalizing abortions when deemed necessary to save the woman's life, declined to comment. The 2013 law was passed following the death in hospital of 31-year-old Savita Halappanavar, who suffered blood poisoning from a dying fetus that doctors refused to remove, and included a maximum 14-year prison term for abortion violators.

Amnesty said the new law still left doctors uncertain when they could legally perform an abortion without risk of being charged with murder.

"Now that Amnesty has become a de facto campaigning group on one side of the abortion debate, sadly it can no longer act in the role of unbiased and impartial defender of human rights," said Cora Sherlock, spokeswoman for Ireland's Pro Life Campaign.

In its conclusions, Amnesty called on Ireland to legalize abortion in cases of severe or fatal fetal abnormalities, of long-term risk to health caused by continued pregnancy, and of pregnancies linked to rape and incest.

Also Tuesday, the British government published its 2014 abortion statistics for England and Wales, where abortion was legalized in 1967. The report found that 3,735 women with Republic of Ireland addresses received abortions in Britain, slightly up from 2013.